Boris Pervan and Samer Khanafseh from Illinois Institute of Technology are collaborating on a NASA-funded project worth $6 million. The initiative focuses on enhancing surface navigation for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) at commercial airports. This project is part of NASA’s University Leadership Initiative, aiming to develop standards and technological solutions for UAS navigation.
Pervan and Khanafseh will concentrate on leveraging global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), including GPS, to address the project's goals. Their work builds upon previous projects related to advanced receiver autonomous integrity monitoring for the Federal Aviation Administration and precision landing technology for the United States Navy.
“It’s kind of a fusion of these two ideas that we’ve worked with before, which makes us the right people to be doing it,” says Pervan.
While autopilot systems for flying and landing are already advanced, surface navigation poses challenges due to its need for higher precision and potential interference sources at airports. Pervan explains that taxiing requires greater accuracy due to obstacles and GNSS signal blockages.
“It’s funny, you’d think that the hard parts would be the flying part and the landing part, but for UASs it’s actually the surface navigation,” says Pervan.
To overcome these challenges, Pervan plans to use receivers that capture signals from multiple satellite constellations at two frequencies. This approach aims to reduce measurement errors and achieve centimeter-level positioning accuracy.
“With that redundancy, we think we can unlock that centimeter-level positioning,” says Pervan.
The technology developed in this project could also simplify autopilot landing technology for commercial aircraft. Collaborators include Ohio University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, Stanford University, Tufts University, Reliable Robotics Corporation, Veth Research Associates, and Boeing Company. Mathieu Joerger from Virginia Tech is involved in developing GNSS-related solutions.